“What We Had”
from the album Plague Park
2007
iTunes
MP3 – “What We Had” [right-click/save-as]
That it will be at least three years between Wolf Parade albums is enough to make anyone cry. But by now, co-frontmen Spencer Krug and Dan Boeckner have had enough side projects — Swan Lake, Sunset Rubdown, Frog Eyes — to craft a Frankenstein-style WP album. Or have they?
Boeckner said of his solo side project, Handsome Furs, that it’s “basically Wolf Parade without the guy that everybody likes and no real instruments.” But Handsome Furs’ debut, Plague Park, takes the man who’s been called the Springsteen/Beck-sounding one of the group and pairs him with drum-machine pyrotechnics courtesy of his fiancée, Alexei Perry. Emotions are mixed, tempos largely steady; the two of them trudge along, crafting some sheepishly sad, mixed-tempo electronica.
The opening track, “What We Had,“ is an anthem to every relationship gone awry, with a hypnotic beat that almost manages to distract you from the fundamentally depressing lyrics. On the plodding-through-the-wilderness/synth-glitch number “Handsome Furs Hate This City,” Boeckner sings of urban disaffection and isolation, and the musical drive evident in the beginning of songs like “Cannot Get, Started” and “Sing! Captain!” doesn’t always hold through to the songs’ end; they start brightly but end slowly, like a road trip ending in a nap, shades drawn.
Handsome Furs will no doubt be compared to the Postal Service — a side project given a drum machine that (surprise!) isn’t quite like the original. They’re not here to comfort or rock, and dances will end midflight, but Plague Park‘s blissfully crackling compositions will find fans in anyone looking for a different brand of IDM: intelligent daydream music.